Fade In On Me
by captainlecaptain
Summary: Mark's POV. 3 months after Roger's death. Mark sits, reminising. ONESHOT.


Fade In On Me

Author Note: So this is my first RENT Fanfic. After reading quite a few, I wanted to try something different.

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_October 27th 1992, 3:57 PM Eastern Standard Time._ I narrated in my head. My camera sat on the dilapidated dresser in my bedroom, untouched for three months. His room stayed untouched. His beautiful Fender still in the same stand it was in when he wasn't playing it. Those lyrics he wrote? All of them still in the box, untouched. The only thing in his room that was organized. His bed was still unmade, from the last nightmare he had before the hospital. 

I want my camera. I need my camera. I miss winding it up, recording real life. I never thought of it, but Roger was right, back then.

'_Mark's got his work. Mark lives for his work. Mark's in love with his work. Mark hides in his work.'_ It finally sunk in. Two years later, it finally sunk in. It's hard to accept that you're a failure. Especially when it was so bluntly laid out for you so long ago. Remembering his voice causes my heart to skip a beat, and I remember when he told me something that would change my life forever.

'_I love you Mark. More than you could ever comprehend.'_ I joked with him about that one. I remember it, and now I regret doing so. I regret being detached from life when he needed me. For days after his death, I wondered "Why me?". I told him to take his AZT, I made him eat, I loved him. That wasn't enough, that was never enough, that never will be enough. I knew we were fated when I first moved in with him. We didn't exactly hit it off, not right away, but we got to be closer when he went through the whole withdrawal period in his life. The loft was always full of laughter, sorrow, emotion...life. I counted them off, everyone that had died since I came into the picture. April, Angel, Mimi, Collins and…

No. I couldn't do it anymore. Accepting his death was like selling my soul. It's not going to happen. The phone rings, and it goes unanswered. I hear Maureen's worried voice, but don't pay attention to anything she's said. The last three months passed me by in a blur. I was trapped with my thoughts, with him everywhere but nowhere in sight. He infiltrated my dreams, his death haunted me, and our happy memories turned dark. Every. Single. Time.

I couldn't go on without him in my life. He was my roommate, my best friend…

My lover. A tear, the only one left unshed, trickles down my cheek, following the paths of the others before it. Before I know it, I'm sitting on the couch. It seemed to have broken down even more since Roger's death. A laugh escapes my lips. The couch seemed to be Roger's life force. If only I had been better to it. It seemed more comfortable when we cuddled on it and he was happy. It seemed small and afraid when he was angry. It seemed dead and emaciated when he was dying. I hugged that couch, I laid down on my stomach, and held that couch cushion as tight as I held him, and let the flood of tears fall into it. This couch was my only connection to the man I truly loved.

Without realizing it, I fell asleep, sobbing into an inanimate object. The couch, the connection remained there, slight, but there. I woke to someone pounding on the door.

"Mark Cohen! Open this door!" came the voice of Maureen. I heard Joanne's muffled voice telling her to calm down. The door sprang open and in waltzed Maureen. Waltz…Musetta's Waltz played over in my head, enjoying the sour notes that I heard Roger play on that beautiful Fender. The one that was still in his room, untouched by anyone or anything.

Maureen stood over me. I looked up at her with probably the saddest eyes she'd ever seen, and she cracked. She let her tears flow. She sat down next to me and pulled me into the warmest hug that I had felt since _him_. I allowed her, I allowed Joanne. We mourned. We mourned the death of the 'One Song Glory' and we mourned the death of the sex god. The one that we knew deep down would die one day. The one that lit up my days with every look, every smile. Everyday that he existed, I continued to live.

"It's just so hard." I managed to choke into Maureen's dark brown hair. It smelled of strawberries. "It's so hard to stay here, and live with his presence and not be able to do anything. It's so hard to pay rent, it's so hard to live." I continued, the tears falling. Apparently I hadn't run out. I just refused to let them fall until now.

"I know, baby. I know." Maureen repeated, rocking all three of us friends back and forth. My body wracked with sobs, and Maureen held me out at arm's length.

"You haven't done anything at all since he died, have you?" Joanne asked. I shook my head. I hadn't eaten, I hadn't slept much, I hadn't lived.

"Let's go out." Maureen said. "Let's get our minds off it. It's all over now. There's no more death knocking on our doors. Let's celebrate life." I mentally scoffed. Death isn't knocking on my door. It's infiltrating my dreams. I haven't lived since that horrible night. That night in the hospital.

_I sat there, watching Roger. He seemed so peaceful, so at ease with this situation. I was blubbering like a baby, asking him not to go._

"_Please don't go, Roger. Please don't go." I pleaded with him. He flashed me that smile, that sad smile that immediately tore my heart in half._

"_I promise I won't." he replied weakly. That wouldn't have been the first promise he'd broken. But it certainly was the last._

"Later." I replied to Maureen, after a moment of silence, leading her to think I was thinking about it. "Later today." I said, not in such a hurry to forget it all, yet I wanted to leave the loft. "Let me have a little more time to myself." I pleaded. "And I'll meet you at Life." I smiled sadly at the two, and they apparently had no choice but to nod and leave. Once the door to the loft was shut, I raced to my room. My camera was were it had always been, a little dusty, but still the same. Checking the film, winding the crank, it was all mechanical. It was like a well choreographed dance between human and machine. I turned it on myself.

"Fade in on me. January 27, 1993, 5:43 PM Eastern Standard Time." I said looking directly in the camera. "Today is the day I finally move on. Today is when I begin to live again. Today…Angel…she…he…always said… 'No Day But Today'. That statement has finally come true. Today is all that matters. Today is."


End file.
